Conventionally, in order to facilitate the putting on or taking off of garments such as trousers and skirts (hereinafter "garments"), the opening of the waist thereof is provided with a pair of hooks comprising a male hook having a hooked end and a female hook that is shaped in such a way as to hang on said male hook. In order to allow adjustment in accordance with the waist size of the wearer, a hooking means has been used in which several female hooks are arranged on one side of the opening, and a male hook that is attached to the other side of the opening hooks onto the most appropriate of the several female hooks. The opening of the garment can be closed or opened by hooking or unhooking the male and female hooks, and the waist size can be adjusted within a certain range by choosing the appropriate female hook.
There are also garments that employ an elastic material such as a rubber belt in some parts of the waist, in which said rubber belt shrinks or expands to facilitate the putting on or taking off of the garment and to adjust to the waist size.
The above means employing several female hooks and a male hook that hooks onto the most appropriate of them is accompanied by a problem, that is, it is difficult to sew and arrange the female hooks at pitches smaller than a certain pitch. If many female hooks are arranged close to one another, the wearer needs to be very careful when attempting to hook the male hook to the appropriate female hook. Otherwise the wearer can end up hooking the male hook to the wrong female hook, resulting in the wrong waist size. For this reason, the female hooks cannot be arranged at pitches smaller than a certain pitch, and as such, the waist size of the garments cannot be finely adjusted.
After a meal or when the wearer applies a strain on the abdomen, the abdominal pressure strengthens and pushes out the garment around the waist line, causing a pain in the abdomen. Conventionally, this problem has been dealt with by loosening the hooks or unhooking them. This kind of operation is not only troublesome but can also make the wearer look untidy and cause unpleasant feelings among other people.
Garments employing an elastic material such as a rubber belt in some parts of the waist, in which said rubber belt shrinks or expands to facilitate putting on or taking off the garments and to adjust the waist size, tend to generate many wrinkles in the fabric around the elastic material, thereby spoiling the appearance of the garments. As such, this kind of garment can be used only for a limited range of applications and not for suits or formal wear.
When many female hooks are sewn onto a garment, these female hooks are individually sewn along the waist line at a certain pitch. When an elastic material is used in some parts of a garment, the elastic material needs to be sewn over a wide range of its length. Either way, the sewing efficiency is low, and this pushes up the sewing cost.